How do you guys rig your lures? Jigging spoons, swedish pimples, jigging raps? I’ve never used those types of ice fishing lures before, I’ve always fished either for panfish, or used tip-ups. I’ve heard some guys say use a minnow head on the lures, jig them just off the bottom?
Wads,
I’ve used just a minnow head, just a tail or a whole minnow. I’ll usually start out with just the head and experiment from there if I see fish on the vex, but don’t get any takers.
Take any minnow you desire…fatheads are cheaper, but hook the minnow on the hook securely as you will be jigging it and sometimes very aggressively jigging it for extended periods of time. Put your thumb and index finger behind the pectoral fins of the minnow and squeeze the tail end off. You want some minnow flesh dangling and waving….hanging guts are a plus when I do it. All that’s left is to wipe your hands on your pants, drop the rig down the hole, and present the lure how the fish want it. Remember it’s not a dead line….when using flash spoons to draw in fish you need to jig it. After dark when the flash lure bite goes sour I have found that a good glow jigging spoon (rattlers as well) pumped and jigged very aggressively will still hook some dandies. Trick of it is that usually you have to keep jigging it as the fish are using there lateral line more than their sight to find the lure. If you stop the fish gets lost. The vexilar is what to have in front of you. It’s cat and mouse….move your mouse (lure) right and the cat (walldad) chomps it!!!!
Another thing I have been doing is to tie on a 3 foot flourocarbon leader using back to back uni-knots or I have tied a small barrel swivel as the uni-knot is tough to tie out on the ice…day or night. I just started this with spoons….I first started it with jigging raps so they wouldn’t spin at rest. Good Luck!!
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